Manny King John
Brandy has released a video for ‘Borderline’ from her new album that recently came out, ‘B7’. Orderlies are taking her down a corridor. There are flashbacks of her looking beautiful on a stage by her lonesome, with no band or audience. Then, she is thrown into a padded room with a white jacket on, but her arms are free. The beat drops, and her voice floats, haunting you. Her voice always sounds so smooth like velvet and satin, but her tone is austere.
The video is very subtle, yet Brandy’s beauty still shines through. The staccato in the song creates a triggered emotion, as she sings about different situations; most of us have felt “crazy” in before. I am sure we can relate to feeling “crazy” and alone in a one-sided relationship, maybe feeling “crazy” or acting “crazy” because of cheating, or feeling “crazy” for falling in love with someone and it is the wrong time to be together. The way she repeats the phrase, “I’m the most jealous girl, in the whole wide world”, in my opinion, represents gaslighting. Gaslighting is a frequently used word on Twitter, but it is a real word utilized within the therapy and mental health community. She ends the music video with facts and statistics about mental health and mental illness in the The United States; most importantly, there is a number for support from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) helpline.
Your mental health is essential. Do not forget you are not alone, and thank goodness for music that speaks to us, all of us.
